Dadaab - A mix of cultural practices, such as early and forced marriage, as well as child labour, are depriving girls of education in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya.

Out of Dadaab's estimated population of 463,000 mainly Somali refugees, more than half are children under 18; of these about 38 percent attend school. The proportion of girls in the camps' primary and secondary schools is 38 and 27 percent, respectively, according to the UN Refugee Agency. A third of girls aged between 5 and 13 in Dabaab go to school; for those aged 14 to 17, only one in 20 are enrolled.

Teachers in Kenya are demanding that the government increase spending on education

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has given the government 2 weeks to enter talks on overdue allowances to cover housing, commuting and health as well as extra allowances for teachers working in the most difficult areas. These were all promised at the end of a dispute in 1997. They are also demanding increases for heads. senior teachers and special needs teachers and the employment of early years teachers. The union says that if Kenya is to have good guality education for all, the government needs to invest $4.78 billion.

Rwanda is planning to hire at least 4,000 teachers from the East African Community this month, opening an employment window for thousands of unemployed teachers in the region.

The move is part of plans to scale up the use of English as the language of instruction in schools as well as increase its use in the largely French-speaking economy, as it seeks opportunities in the integrated EAC where English is the formal language of communication.

WAJIR, Kenya, 26 September – 2011 – In a futile attempt to save the last of the goats, Ali Yusef Omar, 16, and one of his younger sisters had no other option but to feed the ravenous animals handfuls of shredded-up cardboard boxes they had scavenged from the local town. Kept in a make-shift pen made of thorn bushes, only three remain out of a herd that had once numbered two hundred.

“Of course these goats are going to die,” said the boy with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. “You think they’re going to survive on boxes?”

Burdened with the adult responsibility of providing for his mother and five half brothers and sisters, Ali was sent to town to attend high school, with the hope that it would lead to a job that could support his family. When the rains dwindled, however, so have his chances of remaining in school.

Trying to get an education had already been a struggle – now it’s a monumental challenge. Sharing a simple hut made of branches and straw with the rest of the family, Ali is forced to do his homework by flashlight.

Fleeing from drought or violence leaves children with a legacy that doesn’t always make them good students, says Kaissa.

“They are not used to rules,” he says. “They come to school today, but maybe they don’t come tomorrow.” To prove his point, only the most serious students attended school on the first day of term. It would take the rest of the week for the others to take their place in class.

GARISSA, Kenya, 12 September 2011 – Dekha Mohamed Noor, 15, has not seen her family for more than a month. At the end of July, after schools closed for the August holidays, they sent her to live with a relative in Garissa, a bustling commercial hub 165 km west of her home village, Modogashe. The drought in north-eastern Kenya and much of the Horn of Africa had decimated their livestock, throwing the family into a desperate scramble for survival.

These new arrivals are placing enormous strains on local resources in host communities. Abdinoor Hussein, head teacher at Dekha’s new school in Garissa, Yathrib Primary School, says class sizes have ballooned from 50 to an average of 92 pupils, and the school’s 10 teachers are having a hard time coping with the surge

This week, with schools across Kenya reopening for the new term, Dekha joins thousands of other children from drought-affected areas who will not be returning to their former schools because they have migrated to other, better-off districts.

“When I came to this school last year, we had 560 students. But now, there are more than 1,400,” says Mr. Hussein. “Most of the new arrivals are coming from rural communities, where they have been forced out by the drought. They have lost all their livestock, everything, and we cannot just turn them away.”

"Going to school should not be a luxury, especially for the children in Dadaab. On the opposite, this is a powerful way to make their lives safer," emphasizes Stephen Gwynne-Vaughan, country director for CARE Kenya. "If children are left idle in the camps, they are most vulnerable to abuse, drugs and other threats."

When attending classes, children do not only learn how to read and write, but also build up their self-confidence by learning about their rights, good hygiene practices and other matters related to life in the camps.

While schools are closed during the month of August, CARE has started an accelerated learning program for newly-arrived children, many of whom have never been to school before. In the first two days of the program, 1,100 children were admitted to class and are now getting up to speed to participate in regular school programs after the break. However, once classes resume in September, the schools' capacity to provide quality primary education for the growing number of children may be an impossible task.

CARE currently manages five regular schools in Dagahaley camp, reaching more than 15,100 children. Adults from the refugee population are trained as teachers and receive teaching material. Many of those teachers have been living in Dadaab since their early childhood themselves and were educated in the camps before becoming educators themselves.

DADAAB, Kenya (August 11, 2011) - As the influx of Somali refugees across the border to Kenya is increasing every day, CARE draws attention to the lack of sufficient primary education for children living in the refugee camps of Dadaab. The latest numbers of officially registered refugees issued by the United Nations on August 8, 2011, list 399,346 people currently living in Dadaab, a number that is expected to keep growing. Amongst the total refugee population, approximately 114,000 are children at the age of 5 to 13, and only 38 percent are currently enrolled in school.

Dar Es Salaam — Though children attending private schools have been found to perform better than those going to public schools, their performance was far from better, a survey by Uwezo East Africa has established. Surveys conducted in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda on quality of primary education showed that in Tanzania and Uganda, pupils attending private schools performed relatively poorly.

IREX Europe, in partnership with the Kenyan-based NGO Somali Aid Foundation (SAF), is implementing a project aimed at disenfranchised youth which uses theatre as a vehicle for youth to express their views and frustrations on key issues including poverty, lack of access to education and gender issues, among others. The project targets the Somali youth population in the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh and in the refugee camp of Hagadera. The theatre technique used is Drama for Conflict Transformation (DCT), which promotes understanding and tolerance in different societies. IREX Europe and its partners have successfully implemented the methodology in Somaliland, Indonesia and Central Asia.

Speaking at Narok Model Primary School during the District Education Day, Oyaya said teachers also create a bad environment for learners. He said this has made many students dislike some subjects, something that has impacted negatively on education standards in the district.

Students perform poorly in math and science subjects because teachers are incompetent, the National Council for Science and Technology has said. The council said most graduates from tertiary institutions are half-baked. "I have visited more than 40 public schools and institutions across the country and I can tell you for sure some of the math and science teachers are just incompetent," said NCST boss Prof Shaukat Abdulrazak.

Union boss David Osiany said despite setting a target to employ 28,000 teachers by 2012, the government decided not to allocate money in this year's estimates. "It is obvious the government has overlooked the current teachers deficit that is now taking its toll on the quality of education and we cannot just sit and watch as education standards are compromised," Osiany said.